Okay A little backstory first the day was October 14, 2017. a strange Cosmic object was flying past our planet and no one had the slightest clue five days later the interstellar object was on its way out of the solar system when Robert werrick an astronomer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa spotted it with the panoramic survey telescope and rapid response system in Hawaii it was from the moment of its Discovery a weird object with a weird orbit speed and properties the strange object was nomenclature the first known Interstellar object to visit the solar system
but here is the thing it left the solar system faster than it had entered never to return again and here is when it becomes really interesting while tracking omuamu we expected perhaps naively that it would follow a hyperbolic orbit as though the only force acting on it would be gravitational what we found out however was that a normal perfectly hyperbolic orbit didn't quite fit what we observed it was as though there was an additional acceleration as though something unobserved were pushing it in addition to the influence of gravity shaped like an elongated Cigar by the
time it was spotted it had already zipped by our own Sun performed the slick hayop in turn and begun hurtling off in another Direction two things in particular fixated scientists the first was its mysterious acceleration away from the sun which was hard to reconcile with many ideas about what it might have been made of the second was its peculiar shape by some estimates it was 10 times as long as it was wired over the years that followed scientific journals and Global media headlines swarmed with speculation was it a block of solid hydrogen been a debris
or was it as the esteemed Harvard astronomer every lobe suggested an artificial construction made by an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization since the mysterious traveler is out of range of existing telescopes there is only one way to find out we go after it welcome to lab 360. it's time to explore new research outlines a mission called project Lyra to send a probe to see if our newer Muir is as extraordinary as it appears theories to explain the nature of omuamua have included a hydrogenized burke an alien solar sail and fragments of a tidally disrupted planet and so
on all explanations have one feature in common they are extraordinary the research recommends a mission that launches in February 2028 spends four years getting gravity assists from Earth twice and then Venus and Jupiter and finally reaching our newer Muir between 2050 to 2054 the isn't the first attempt to plot a course for our Muir though most of the other attempts have resorted to using an o-birth maneuver around the Sun that tactic Caesar spacecraft fall into a gravitational well and as it's falling use its engines to add more acceleration its disadvantage is that a massive Shield
would be required to protect a probe against the Sun instead project liar employs an o-birth maneuver around Jupiter the mission would much more resemble existing interplanetary missions the drawback is that launch opportunities are very limited the other option of course is to wait until another object like our Muir comes along and visit that one instead after all there could be seven passing through our solar system each year it would even be that most comets come from other star systems it would not be wise to wait according to the scientists because the second Interstellar object ever
found to I borisov in 2019 resembles minor bodies already found in the solar system this makes our newer Muir even more of an oddity and it is unclear what the likelihood of encountering a similar object again is meanwhile Avi Logue suggests that not only are there aliens in our galaxy but there are actually Four quintillion Army muers speeding across our solar system to be fair lobe isn't outright saying omuamua was an alien spacecraft per se but he is saying we should be open to that possibility in light of that Outlook he's basically asking what respectable
scientists would never deign to do how many possible our Muay muers could there be in our solar system that go unnoticed Loeb and fellow Harvard astronomer carcinazelle looked at how many Interstellar visitors we've already spotted one can use recent traits of detection of interstellar objects and known capabilities to estimate the density of similar objects in the Solar neighborhood astronomers wrote in the study since our Muir they have been three more Interstellar objects detected by astronomers making it four in eight years at that rate low bandazola calculated there could be up to a staggering 40 decillion
Interstellar objects in the entire solar system including areas beyond the reach of our instruments that number is brought down to the more humble four quintillion figure when limiting the scope to the habitable zone near the sun which is potentially exciting since if some of them are aliens they'd be easier to detect some of logue's theories are boundary pushing but he never fails to raise some fascinating points even if the majority of four quintillion Interstellar objects turn out to just be bits of Space Rock which lobe admits is likely that still leaves quite a bit of
room for some of them to be alien spacecraft but where are they the first thing that comes to my mind is the Kuiper belt a cold dark and distant space in the outer solar system it's primarily made up of icy objects dwarf planets dust and comets so far over 2 000 Kuiper built objects have been cataloged researchers believe these are only a tiny fraction of the total number of objects scientists think are out there but one thing that fascinated NASA in the Kuiper belt is the 15 8 1001 a quick Google search will tell you
that R1 is a Kuiper built object a large rock that orbits round outside the orbit of Neptune but is it a rock in April 2016 NASA's New Horizons spacecraft reached the Kuiper belt after capturing its first Target Pluto the probe turned its sight towards a large object on a strange trajectory yes we are talking about 15 1801 named after the Celtic gourd of death war and the other world now why is it so special you ask well most of the objects in the Kuiper belt are made of rock and ice R1 doesn't move like any
of cataloged objects in the belt this has made scientists question if it is made of something completely different something much stronger because it's rotating so fast that centrifugal force should have taunted apart how could something spin so fast and stay intact scientists believe that the fast spin is creating artificial gravity and gravity would be the most vital thing needed for long Interstellar travel you cannot have astronauts floating around the spacecraft while traversing hundreds of light years this probed the New Horizon to take a closer look at the object and here is when things turn strange
as the probe tried to get a closer look suddenly all of its sensors went dead Transmissions cut off it was as if someone was monitoring our presence someone or something that did not want us to know about them but just before losing contact Nasser observed that our one was spinning like a large spaceship would now you can say that it might have been a technical glitch but here is when things get crazier only when New Horizon moved away from R1 it suddenly came back to life as if nothing had ever happened in the first place
now I would leave it to you to assume what it was but if it's an intelligent alien civilization it makes complete sense to stay far away from Earth silently observe us from the cold and dark space in the Kuiper belt and whenever the need arises for a closer inspection hop onto a spacecraft and camouflage it so that it appears as a mere Space Rock to the beings of the planet in addition lobe also suggested in the past that omuamua could be a piece of alien space junk a defunct sail craft that has accidentally found its
way to us or it may be an active reconnaissance graft sent here to check out our solar system he had written in the study there are reasons to favor the latter explanation Loeb said for starters our mu is very Discovery was something of an anomaly our own solar system doesn't shed so many our newer newer-like objects in addition our muamiwa's motion is roughly coincident with the average motion of material in our patch of the Milky Way galaxy a kinematic space known as the local standard of rest indeed that's why the object system of origin has
been so hard to pin down if I created an instrument whose identity I would like to hide I would put it at the local standard of rest lobe set astronomers have used the green Bank telescope in West Virginia and the Allen telescope array in Northern California to listen for any possible things coming from our Muir to date the object has remained silent what do you guys think should we go after omuamua or wait until another one shows up at our doorstep dropping your comments to let us know and don't forget to subscribe to lab 360.
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